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The travelogue author’s account — an Urdu translation of his book The Apricot Road to Yarkand that retraced the mediaeval route from Baltistan to Yarkand (now in the Chinese province of Xinjiang) — spans more than just geography. It is a sharp observation of the people he meets en route, of how language and names have changed over time and space and how the arduous journey itself is matched every step of the way by bureaucratic red tape.